On September 1, a U.S. District Court in Ohio said a trial will be held in August 2006 in the Cobb-Badnarik recount lawsuit. The case, Rios v Blackwell, 3:04-cv-7724, northern district, was filed last year. It charges that even though the candidates who asked for the recount paid for it, many counties did not handle the recount according to law. The lawsuit charges that some counties did not really choose precincts to recount randomly.
On September 8, the Ohio State Court of Appeals will hear a case on whether initiative circulators must be Ohio residents. State ex rel Finan v Blackwell, 05-APD-08-0854, Columbus. The decision will be out soon afterwards. The decision will determine whether several election reform initiatives get on the ballot. They concern setting up a non-partisan method for drawing legislative and US House district boundaries; campaign finance restrictions; early voting; and setting up a State Board of Elections. The initiatives lack enough signatures if the signatures collected by out-of-state circulators can’t be counted.
On August 31, the California Assembly passed SB 1050, which legalizes some write-ins when the voter forgot to “x” the box next to the name written in. The bill was amended in the Assembly, so now it must go back to the Senate.
The New Mexico Supreme Court is hearing Cobb & Badnarik v New Mexico Canvassing Board (#29095) on August 29, 2005. The issue is whether the two 2004 presidential candidates needed to submit a deposit of $114,000, or $1,140,000, in order to request a recount of last year’s presidential vote.
On August 25, U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis, a Clinton appointee, upheld a New York state ballot access law. Specifically, he upheld the law that requires a candidate for citywide office in New York city to obtain 7,500 signatures. When a candidate is seeking a place on a party primary ballot, he or she needs 7,500 signatures, or 5% of that party’s members, whichever is less. A Republican city councilman, Thomas Ognibene, tried to run for Mayor in the Republican primary, but he only collected 8,116 signatures, and only 5,848 were valid. He argued that the requirement is too difficult, but the judge upheld the law. However, the judge was critical of the law, and seemed to say that if it weren’t for bad ballot access precedents from the U.S. Supreme Court itself, he would have invalidated it. The case is Ulrich v Mane, 05-cv-3911, eastern district (Brooklyn). Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this post.
